Friday, August 5

Kaili Blues

Area Theatrical Premiere!

(2015) dir Bi Gan w/Chen Yongzhong, Zhao Daqing [113 min; DCP]
In a small clinic in the rain-drenched city of Kaili, two preoccupied doctors live ghost-like lives. One of them, Chen, decides to fulfill his dead mother’s wish and sets off on a train journey to look for his brother’s abandoned child. His partner in the clinic, a lonely old lady, asks Chen to find her old lover, and give him an old photograph, a shirt and a music cassette. But on the way, Chen passes a mysterious town called Dangmai, where time is not linear and people’s lives complement each other. Here, Chen experiences the past, present and future simultaneously during a bravura 40-minute-long unbroken shot. Debut filmmaker Bi Gan manages to infuse his film with the influences of Weerasethakul, Resnais, Tarkovsky, and Tsai Ming-liang while creating something altogether fresh.

★★★★ “Bi’s singular vision bears comparison to those of other geniuses such as Tarkovsky, Sokurov, David Lynch, Luis Buñuel and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Like those auteurs, he achieves what film is best at but seldom accomplishes — a stirring of a deeper consciousness, a glimpse into a reality transcending the everyday.” – Peter Keough, Boston Globe

“First-time writer-director Bi Gan and cinematographer Wang Tianxing infuse the imagery with a feeling at once otherworldly and familiar — the kind of thing you can’t put a name to but would swear you’ve already experienced.” – Michael Nordine,Village Voice